Moments in Time: Photos Of The Week

Moments in Time: Photos Of The Week: "You can click on the pictures for a larger view. Click it again for a really big view . Dead Horse Point, Utah ©2010-2011 Robert C. Volp..."

First Hike to a High Lake this Season

A couple friends and I hiked into a favorite high lake yesterday to fish and get the first high lake hike of the season under our belts. We accomplished the hike and wet some streamers, but the fishing ? not so much.

Winds were brutal and unrelenting, gusting to 35 mph at least. We got blown out and bagged it at around 10:30.

There was a lot of chop on the water and when we first arrived Kyle and Jon each thought they saw a fish. (fishful thinking?) There is very little ice left on the lakes and with the winds I'm sure the last of it will be gone by today. There is, however, very little shoreline accessible due to snow shelves down to and into the lake. We just missed seeing a large chunk of snow shelf (about 150 feet) sluff off and drop into the water. We did see the wave it created roll across the lake. This served as a good reminder not to walk out onto the snow shelf if you don't want to wind up cold and soaked or worse, dead.

Imagine your wading on the edge of that snow shelf when it collapsed. You'd be pinned from behind face down, unable to move or get up. Game over, you lose.

Temps were around high 60's but the wind chill was around mid to upper 30's and was enough to make your hands and face cold and your nose to run.

After about 15 minutes of fruitless streamer chucking and getting hit hard in the back of my head by a cone head woolly bugger (it didn't stick), I just put the rod down and moved around taking pictures.

Just as we finished breaking down and putting on our packs Jon saw a fish swimming off shore. Then as we got down around the lower lake the wind stopped dead. Total calm. Then a few small gusts. Then some breeze, not too bad. We thought about going back up but...nah. The winds did pick up again by the time we reached the parking lot, we ate some Sammies and hit the road.

Jon wanted me to shoot some pictures of him with his Deuter pack so he would have some shots for the blog he is writing for them. He is accumulating a massive bag of swag from these companies.    More power to ya kid.

Jon modeling the Deuter Future Pro 42 red/gray/black backpack, shown here with optional fly fishing accoutrements.

Epic Caddis Hatch Prediction...

Hasn't panned out yet. On June 11th I predicted an epic caddis hatch for the Charlie Meyers Wildlife Area. EPIC FAIL!!!!! I was just up there and didn't see anymore adult caddis than I did two weeks ago. Bummer. Maybe it's still to come, there are sure a lot of larva in the river. Hope so.
Seems like every time I go to the Charlie anymore they raise the flow as soon as I get there.

Meanwhile, the Platte above Spinney is running high and off color, basically a bust. 

Morning In The Garden

Woke up this morning with time to kill, since I have to wait for the plumber to get here to replace my dead water heater. But, as they say, that’s another story.

I walked around the front yard checking my various flower beds to see what’s blooming and budding and getting an idea of how much longer it will be before color starts to really take off and brighten up the yard.

Most of the flowers are another week or more away from blooming, but a few Columbines, Blue Flax and Lupine are blooming and last night the first of the Poppies bloomed. There was barely any wind this morning, which in and of itself is a rare blessing, and the light was pretty nice, so I got out the camera and went to town on the new born poppies.

Before bursting into a giant flame orange blossom poppies start out as a bug eye looking furry bud. 

And then BAM, blossoms of fire.

 

The rest of the garden is off to a slow colorful start. This small bed under the little Aspen tree is always the first to start showing signs of spring color. Soon the Penstemon will be blooming with their long stems of pink trumpet like blooms.

Moments in Time: Photos Of The Week

Moments in Time: Photos Of The Week: "You can click on the pictures for a larger view. Click it again for a really big view . First Snow, San Juan Mts., Colorado ©2010-2011 Ro..."

Fished a very special secret spot yesterday

Got a chance to fish a secret off limits to the public piece of water yesterday. These fish see very little pressure and will take almost anything that resembles a bug. I was tossing a hopper dropper rig all day, Amy's Ant #10 on top and a #12 ptail dropped. What a treat throwing something bigger than a #20 fly. Also threw big streamers and got into a bunch of fish on those.
Got more fish than I could count all in the 14-18" range.
I was eye balling this one fish that was about a 16"er who was eye balling my drift, when it suddenly took off like a shot away from my flies. Just then this giant head comes up and snatches my hopper. Holy shiite Batman that's a big fish. It was a  beast of a brown that took off like a rocket when hooked and took me into my backing in about 2 seconds. I took off down river in hot pursuit and proceeded to trip and fall in the river. Kept the rod up and had pressure on the fish the whole time until he launched into a 4 foot horizontal leap and snapped my tippet. He was easily 24". Arrrrrrgghhh!!!!!

Moments in Time: Photos Of The Week

Moments in Time: Photos Of The Week: "Ice Off At Blue Lake, San Juan Mts., Colorado


American Avocets Mating Dance"

If it's June, this must be caddis.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and make a prediction.

The Deckers area has had some massive caddis hatches the last few years but this year the caddis population seems to be down comparatively. With the drop in caddis production in the Deckers area I feared the rest of the South Platte would suffer the same decline. This deeply disappointed me, as the caddis hatch is my favorite hatch to fish.

A few days ago I fished the Charlie Meyers Wildlife Area with some friends and got into a few decent resident browns right off the bat. The first fish we stomach pumped was loaded with caddis larva. Nice big fat juicy green and cream colored caddis that were a good size 16 bug. We rigged up with some chartreuse larva flies and started getting into more fish, but the flow was soon bumped over 50cfs, the river went off color and the bite stopped dead.

While the rest of the day was pretty much a bust I was still pleased to see a fish that was loaded with caddis on this stretch of the Platte.

Last year there was a huge caddis hatch on this stretch and I had a great time fishing to fat and sassy browns and bows. It’s still a little early for a full blown hatch this high up but the outlook is good. Look for the hatch to commence en mass within the next week to ten days. So my prediction is “EPIC CADDIS HATCH TO COME”

Moments in Time: Photos Of The Week

Photos of the Week Update for the week of Jun 8th

Moments in Time: Photos Of The Week: "Above Blue Lake, San Juan Mts, Colorado ©2010-2011 Robert C. Volpe Whispering Spirit Images


Elk In Velvet Above Timberline ©..."

Fishing Deckers June 7th

I've been busy digitizing my library of 35mm slides for the last week. Actually, I've just started. It's gonna be a long tedious process. Today I had to get out of the house as I was getting cross eyed staring at a computer screen and adjusting slide exposures and color balances.
Had  a good day chasing trouts despite the low flows.

As I approached the hole I wanted to fish today I was greeted by a male Merganser who was not very happy to see me.

My first fish came after just a few casts. He took a golden stone fly.

Next fish came shortly after on a chartreuse caddis larva.
When a hatch of large midges started I switched to a white and black JuJubeatis and it was game on for about an hour. Lost a bunch of fish on bad hook sets and one pig who straightened out the hook.

I was surprised by this nice brown who also took a black and white JuJu.

It was a slippery fish day.

Gotta love a good fish day.

Arrowhead Lake August 2010

It's June and my mind is wandering to thoughts of high country lakes and wild greenback cutthroat trout. With the word coming in that Cottonwood Pass has finally opened I can't help thinking of the great trips to come this summer, camping and dry fly fishing to the most beautiful, colorful trout the high country has to offer.
I stitched this slideshow together from pictures taken by the six guys I had the honor of sharing this adventure with to a remote lake in Rocky Mountain National Park last August. I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed being there.